Living Colour's Corey Glover on Latest Music with New Band Sonic Universe
He's the powerhouse voice behind multi-platinum, two-time Grammy Award-winning group Living Colour , who shook up the '80s music scene with poignant lyrics and a creative fusion of funk, jazz, metal, and rock. Billboard even named him one of their 'The 50 Greatest Rock Lead Singers of All Time.' All the while, Glover has stayed busy pursuing solo music projects and stretching his acting chops on stage and screen. For his latest work, he teamed up with guitarist Mike Orlando of Adrenaline Mob to form Sonic Universe , alongside drummer Taykwuan Jackson and bassist Booker King. The singer is living proof that you never need to stay in one box. The sound is super hard and heavy, and Glover's undeniable vocals are as strong as ever. We caught up with him recently on the heels of the band's latest 10-track album, It Is What It Is , to hear all about it. This is a LifeMinute with Corey Glover.
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00:00Hi, my name's Corey Glover. I'm from Living Color and Sonic Universe, and you're watching
00:05Life Minute TV.
00:07He's the powerhouse voice behind multi-platinum two-time Grammy Award winning group Living
00:14Color, who shook up the 80s music scene with poignant lyrics and a creative fusion of funk,
00:20jazz, metal and rock. All the while, Corey Glover has stayed busy pursuing solo projects
00:25and stretching his acting chops on stage and screen. His latest work? Teaming up with
00:30guitarist Mike Orlando of Adrenaline Mob to form Sonic Universe, living proof that you
00:36never need to stay in one box. The sound is super hard, heavy, and Glover's undeniable
00:42vocals are as strong as ever. We caught up with him recently on the heels of the band's
00:47latest 10-track album, It Is What It Is, to hear all about it.
00:52It's a bad time, sound the alarm.
00:55So, Sonic Universe.
00:57Yes.
00:58It's awesome. Congratulations.
01:00It's really good. I listened to the two singles. What is it? Can you break it down for us?
01:05I Am is basically, it's a declarative statement. People like myself and Mike Orlando are very
01:12much overlooked, despite how much stuff that we've accomplished. If you ever saw Mike Orlando
01:18play, you'd be blown away. And not enough people know that somebody like him exists
01:24is what we were trying to get across in a song like I Am.
01:30And for higher, higher is basically in that no matter what life gives you, you can always
01:36get better. Whatever you have can always be better. And all you have to do is just reach
01:41just a little bit higher than where you are right now.
01:49You gotta go higher, higher if you wanna fly.
01:54I think in this society, we are very much looking at what's new and shiny. And so I
01:59think that we are oftentimes, particularly myself and Mike Orlando, are oftentimes overlooked
02:06in terms of our ability until we show somebody what our ability is. And they go, oh yeah,
02:14that's right. You do do that, don't you?
02:15We were on a cruise, actually. We were on Shiprock. And I was there as a stowaway, sort
02:25of like an artist at large. And Mike was there playing with his band. And I saw him play
02:34and I was blown away. I was absolutely just gobsmacked when I saw him play. And I ran
02:43up to him and started yelling at him at how amazing he was and what a great guitar player
02:49he was. And we struck up a friendship. And after the cruise, I went to his studios, Sonic
02:58Stomp Studios in Staten Island, and we started working. And the first thing we came up with
03:04was I Am.
03:05And he comes up with these amazing grooves and amazing riffs. And I sit there and just
03:18write. And it's fun. It's a lot of fun. And as it progressed, it got better and it got
03:25better and got better. Then the pandemic hit and we had to stop. And we stopped for a bit
03:29and then we get back to it. And then we called Booker and Taekwon. And it started to really
03:35come together, started to coalesce. And it just became amazing. We are going to probably do some
03:41stuff in the fall. I think this one, our schedule sort of opened up at the end of October. Living
03:48Colors is out on the road right now. We're going to Europe with Mr. Big doing some festivals out
03:53there. We're going back out with Xtreme in North America and parts of Canada. We're going to South
04:00America in the fall. So we're working, doing a lot of work. They're very different. Living
04:07Color is established. It has its thing. It is its own thing. Sonic Universe is full of
04:12opportunities and full of things that could change the whole landscape of things. So it's
04:18different and the same at the same time. We're going back in the studio in like a month or so.
04:23We're still working on something new. Yes, something should be coming out next year.
04:27Sometimes there's lyrics that come to mind and a piece of music sort of fits. And sometimes I hear
04:32a piece of music and I start writing from that. It depends on the song. The great thing about it is,
04:40you know, Mike Orlando is a major sort of riff machine. He comes up with this stuff just off
04:45the top of his head and it's always amazing. Living Color usually has a little more social
04:50bent to it and Sonic Universe is a lot more personal, sort of like relationships. So it
04:58depends on what's written. I knew I wanted to be a singer. I've been singing since I was six
05:02years old. This is not a fly-by-night sort of situation. I've been doing this for a very long
05:07time. Carlos Santana was a major influence. The Santana Band was a major influence. The Usuals,
05:13big Jackie Wilson fan, big Sam Cooke fan, big Michael Jackson fan. Major singers,
05:20just singing singers, you know. It was always a lot of fun to watch. Anthrax is one of my favorite
05:26bands. They're good friends of mine as well. Rage, Rage Against the Machine is one of my favorite
05:31bands. I love Soundgarden back in the day. I've been acting since I was 14. I was doing it
05:38consistently for a while. The two go hand-in-hand, what I do musically and what I do as an actor,
05:45because they are both acting exercises. Singing and acting are obviously an exercise in emotional
05:52truth and trying to find an emotional center to something and the most honest place that you can
05:58be. You're trying to really look for something that really speaks to you and resonates through
06:07you. Music is the emotion and the words you cannot say. When you find something that speaks
06:16to you and speaks for you, it's a good thing. It's a balance. It's about balance. For the most part,
06:26more than anything else that you should know as a singer is that if you're going to scream
06:32and holler and do all kinds of stuff that's going to really wear you out, rest as long
06:36as it took you to do that just so that you can recover from it. You rest as hard as you work.
06:42If you do something really, really strenuous, rest as long as that takes you to do that
06:46strenuous work. Is there something you want to do that you haven't done yet? I'm waiting
06:51to see what happens. If something comes up, I'll take it off my list. You have to be open
06:56to learn whatever the universe is trying to tell you right now. You can't guide it, it'll guide you.
07:01To hear more of this interview, visit our podcast,
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